cubs204
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Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2012 4:56 pm
Location: Central IL

Grrr!

A couple of questions for the experienced out there. I weed a little every evening in the garden (really more checking things, but don't want the wife thinking I'm a nut watching plants grow). Sunday evening everything was picture perfect, watermelon was starting to get a couple true leaves, cucumber as well. Tomatoes I transplanted were looking super healthy and my beans, onions and carrots were looking good as well. I got home from work Monday evening and two of the three tomato plants looked severly frost damaged (90% on one - 100% on the other, leaves only, it got down to 36F) the third plant looked just as good as the night before. My cucumber and watermelon seedlings were gone. Just plain not there anymore, my guess is the abundant birds that like to hang around but what do you think? my onions and carrots looked fine and my beans looked ok except for 2 plants looked frost bit as well. I knew I set some stuff out early, but I sure didnt expect that big of a crash. Any advice?

DoubleDogFarm
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Floating row covers. Good for frost protection, birds and insects.

Eric

Flatlander_MB
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Joined: Tue Feb 07, 2012 3:42 pm
Location: Central Illinois

It's gotten pretty chilly a few of the recent nights around here, but I think we're out of the woods now. If you've just got some minor cold damage, you probably just want to ride things out. For the tomatoes, you're probably facing replanting some other tomato starts if they're pretty damaged.

As for your seedlings that are gone, my guess would be some land-based varmint over birds. I've seen my cuke starts disappear like that & have found baby rabbits invading the garden in the past. The good news is that it's not too late to replant. In fact, I'm probably another 1-2 weeks away from direct sowing my cucumbers. I'll be sure to have my fencing installed before they sprout (& any gaps covered with some of the spare bricks I have lying around).

dtlove129
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Location: Decatur, IL

Flatlander, are you the person from Champaign. Cubs and I found out a few days ago that we actually live about 400 yards from each other. Small world! I'm waiting probably 2 more weeks on the "warm" weather things as well. I wanted to do like Cubs and put things out early, but I got scared. Well actually I did put corn out, and so far so good.

Flatlander_MB
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Location: Central Illinois

dtlove129 wrote:Flatlander, are you the person from Champaign. Cubs and I found out a few days ago that we actually live about 400 yards from each other. Small world! I'm waiting probably 2 more weeks on the "warm" weather things as well. I wanted to do like Cubs and put things out early, but I got scared. Well actually I did put corn out, and so far so good.
Wow! Small world indeed. Yep, I'm outside Champaign (Mahomet, actually).

I've seen a lot of corn sprouting in the fields in the last week or so, you're in good company.

dtlove129
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Joined: Mon Mar 05, 2012 2:04 pm
Location: Decatur, IL

I went to college in Ky with a girl from Mahomet. Anyhow, yeah the farmer's planting early made me go ahead and take my chances on my sweet corn. I figured hey if they gamble on $100,000 worth of corn I'll gamble on $20 worth.

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rainbowgardener
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It was probably significantly too early for putting watermelon and cucumber in the ground. They are the warmest of warm weather crops, much less cold hardy than tomatoes.

But if they just disappeared over night, I'm not thinking that is frost damage which would leave you with blackened shrivelled vines. Perhaps cutworms? Read up on them a little. They are the worst pest for just making things disappear like that, but pretty preventable if you prepare ahead.

My tomatoes rode out our last couple of nights in the mid 30's just fine, but they had been thoroughly hardened off. You might want to give them a little chance, see if they perk up with warmer weather. But if they don't recover real soon, best to start over.

cubs204
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Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2012 4:56 pm
Location: Central IL

Yeah I'm thinking I'm just going to have to redo about most eveything. Supposed to get nasty this weekend, highs in the lower 50's and upper 40's. I knew I was jumping the gun a little but I still had fun doing it. Now I get to do it all over again lol.



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